How can a new kind of cinema be collectively created within a transnational society? SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, the cinema-experiment by bi’bak, explores cinema as a space of social discourse, exchange, and solidarity. The curated film series brings together diverse social communities and connects places both near and geographically distant; it links pasts, presents and futures and moves away from a eurocentric gaze towards transnational, (post-)migrant and postcolonial perspectives. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is a different kind of cinema, one simultaneously committed to local and international communities, that understands cinema as an important public sphere of sociality; it considers film history as crucial to the work of cultural memory and is committed to a diversity of film culture and film art. In Haus der Statistik at Berlin-Alexanderplatz, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA builds a bridge between urban practice and film to create a space that opens access, stimulates discussion, educates, moves, provokes and encourages.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is funded by Haupstadtkulturfonds, Conrad Stiftung and the Programm NEUSTART KULTUR
“But what harm is in diversity, when there is unity in desire?” With this question, the Indonesian president Sukarno opened the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung. Whilst being known as one of the earliest global alliances of people of color in non-alignment politics, these political acteurs represented only the interests of their own nation-states, at the cost of oppressing marginal queer and indigenous groups. Hence the absence of these perspectives in the linear and heteronormative historical narrative of anti-colonial struggles. Imagining Queer Bandung aims to draw a bridge between this “unity in desire” and LGBTQ+ social activism, decolonial knowledge, and cinematic imagination. How can we imagine alternative approaches in which queer bodies – across Asian, African, and Caribbean contexts – participate in, produce and reclaim these larger discourses for themselves, their communities, and their liberation, as neither national nor sexual objects?
Funded by Fonds Soziokultur and The European Solidarity Corps in cooperation with ‘Queer’ Asia in Germany
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
Ragil Huda is an organizer, independent curator, and graduate student at the Asien-Afrika Institut, Universität Hamburg. He co-founded QTIBIPOC Hamburg and is also one of the organizing committees of the international platform and network called Queer' Asia in Berlin. His community engagement and academic work specifically center on queerness, intersectionality, community building, critical pedagogy, and the social-political realities of marginalized communities through various methodologies and collaborative curatorial practices.
Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์ อุตมโชติ) is a nonbinary filmmaker and curator. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, with whom they curated the un.thai.tled Film Festival Berlin and Beyond the kitchen: Stories from the Thai Park. Their video installation I Am Not Your Mother (2020) was exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and their short film Soy Sauce (2020) was screened at OutFest Fusion LA, Xposed Berlin, and Queer East London 2021, among others.
Workshop Leaders Ragil Huda, Abby Baheerathan, Abilaschan Balamuraley, Dorjee Lhamo, Rodrigo Zorzanelli and Sung Un Gang
Application deadline: 15th June 2021 23:00 CET Participants announcement: end of June 2021
These workshops are designed to provide you with the knowledge, practical skills, and tools to produce your own podcasts, as well as knowledge of gender and sexuality, culture and history outside a Western/Eurocentric perspective. This workshop will cover audio storytelling basics, including concept, format, structure, the art of the interview (researching guests, forming questions, active listening, and how to prepare and conduct various interview types), sound-mixing, editing, distribution, and project sustainability. The workshops are suitable for those who have zero to basic knowledge yet have interests in podcasting.
The selection criteria are your project’s conceptual potential, artistic originality, and logistical realizability. The applicants should also reflect on the visions of Imagining Queer Bandung and be willing to solidarize and create a safe space. We also aim for a well-balanced set of representations amongst the participants.
How to apply?
For more information and details of the workshops and how to apply, click the links below:
If you have any queries or problems with using the forms, please email: hudaragil-at-gmail.com
Funded by Fonds Soziokultur and The European Solidarity Corps in cooperation with ‘Queer’ Asia in Germany.
More Event times:
14.08.2021 (11:00) - 14.08.2021 (13:30)
15.08.2021 (11:00) - 15.08.2021 (13:30)
21.08.2021 (11:00) - 21.08.2021 (13:30)
22.08.2021 (11:00) - 22.08.2021 (13:30)
Ragil Huda is an organizer, independent curator, and graduate student at the Asien-Afrika Institut, Universität Hamburg. He co-founded QTIBIPOC Hamburg and is also one of the organizing committees of the international platform and network called Queer' Asia in Berlin. His community engagement and academic work specifically center on queerness, intersectionality, community building, critical pedagogy, and the social-political realities of marginalized communities through various methodologies and collaborative curatorial practices.
Abby Baheerathan is a journalist and media coach from the Ruhr area. Now they live in Paderborn and are completing a traineeship at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). For five years, Abby has been helping kids, teens, and students to develop their media skills in the areas of radio, cross-media journalism, audio drama, and podcasts. In their own German-Tamil podcast Acca Pillai, they talk about culture, tradition, and social taboos from a queer perspective.
Abilaschan Balamuraley lives in Berlin and is host of "Maangai Podcast", the community podcast for queer South Asian perspectives in German-speaking countries and "Transculture Express the artistanian podcast for queer and postcolonial perspectives". He is also a member and moderator at the queer and post migrant educational collective " erklär mir mal..". Abilaschan is beside his functions as a podcast host also active as a diversity trainer within the club scene in Berlin.
Dorjee Lhamo Gerhard is a host/author of workin’ Germany on Instagram and an anti-discrimination facilitator working for Arbeit und Leben Hamburg. In her work, she focuses on an intersectional understanding of society and furthers allyship as well as self-empowerment in order to help her listeners unlearn racism and other forms of discrimination. She uses her bachelor's degree in media studies to corporate it into her work as an artist and activist. Her goal is to help diversify the media landscape by using her experience in media planning/production as well as empathic management skills. As an admin of QTIBIPOC Hamburg, she has helped organize weekly events and has represented the community as a spokesperson on several occasions.
Rodrigo Zorzanelli produces and hosts the podcast “intersectional islands”, an anthology of queer and feminist narratives. With a background in cultural anthropology and social sciences, their practice situates personal narratives into social and political contexts, particularly by highlighting agency and representation of (post)migrant, decolonial and queer perspectives. Rodrigo’s interdisciplinary work is orientated towards performance art, theater, writing, and gender education through art. Although based in Berlin, they have lived and studied in São Paulo, in Buenos Aires and in Delhi.
Sung Un Gang teaches Korean history at University of Bonn and produces "Bin ich süßsauer?" (=Am I sweet-sour?), the monthly interview podcast with queer Asian people in Germany. He was a finalist of Spotify SoundUp LGBTQIA+ Podcast Workshop in Berlin 2019. He loves roaming around cities and going to markets.
Workshop Leaders Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan, Kit Hung, Robert Moussa, Sailesh Naidu, Zara Zandieh, Lamin Leroy Gibba, Ygor Gama and Wing-Ho Kloud Wan
Application deadline: 15th June 2021 23:00 CET Participants announcement: end of June 2021
This workshop aims to facilitate both technical and intellectual conversations around decolonial queer filmmaking. It aims to provide basic tools for each participant to realize at least two small projects during the one-month intensive workshop. From the history of postcolonial queer cinema, decolonial aesthetics, basic storytelling to pitching, basic camera and documentary techniques to montage, the participants’ project conceptualization and production will be accompanied by the main mentor (Kit Hung). Throughout the process, participants will be inspired, provoked, and urged to reflect through sessions hosted by invited guests.
How to apply?
For more information and details of the workshops and how to apply, click the links below:
If you have any queries or problems with using the forms, please email: hudaragil-at-gmail.com
Funded by Fonds Soziokultur and The European Solidarity Corps in cooperation with ‘Queer’ Asia in Germany.
More Event times:
17.07.2021 (10:00) - 17.07.2021 (18:00)
18.07.2021 (10:00) - 18.07.2021 (18:00)
24.07.2021 (10:00) - 24.07.2021 (18:00)
25.07.2021 (10:00) - 25.07.2021 (18:00)
31.07.2021 (10:00) - 31.07.2021 (18:00)
01.08.2021 (10:00) - 01.08.2021 (18:00)
07.08.2021 (10:00) - 07.08.2021 (18:00)
08.08.2021 (10:00) - 08.08.2021 (18:00)
Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์ อุตมโชติ) is a nonbinary filmmaker and curator. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, with whom they curated the un.thai.tled Film Festival Berlin and Beyond the kitchen: Stories from the Thai Park. Their video installation I Am Not Your Mother (2020) was exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and their short film Soy Sauce (2020) was screened at OutFest Fusion LA, Xposed Berlin, and Queer East London 2021, among others.
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
Kit Hunggraduated with an M.F.A. from the Department of Film, Video and New Media, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His films have won numerous international awards, and was screened at over 120 international film festivals. His debut feature "Soundless Wind Chime" (2009, Hong Kong/Switzerland/China) was nominated for the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and won him Best Director and Best New Director in Spain, Italy and Canada. He was teaching at the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University, he is currently a post-graduate student at the Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. His main research interest are Cinema Affects and Queer Asian Cinema.
Robert Moussa is the coordinator of Soura Film Festival which is a queer film festival focused on the Middle East and North Africa region. Soura—which means ‘image’ in Arabic, is about sharing a vision of life that is joyful, poignant, defiant and unique. The festival is based in Berlin, which has been called, perhaps somewhat ironically, the new cultural centre of the Arab world. Soura Film Festival aims to step across borders and set aside political conflicts, to weave together those threads that connect queer experience throughout the vibrant and complex MENA region.
Sailesh Naidu is an artist and development consultant based in Berlin, Germany. For over ten years he has worked with marginalized populations around the world to help people tell their stories, surface solutions, and co-create projects that put their clients at the center. At the heart of any social problem are individual stories and within those stories solutions can be uncovered. Sailesh specializes in developing programs for and working with youth and gender/sexual minorities. His unique style of deep listening and practical engagement can help your organization understand how to work with target populations better and with more empathy.
Zara Zandieh (they/she) is a filmmaker born and based in Berlin. Zara’s works have been nominated for awards at various film festivals including the BFI FLARE Film Festival, Queer Lisboa, and Dok Leipzig. Zara’s most current project, Octavia’s Visions premiered at Oberhausen Film Festival 2021. Zara was selected for the 2021 edition of Berlinale Talents.
Lamin Leroy Gibba, born in 1994, grew up in Hamburg St.Pauli and studied acting and film at the New School University in New York. During his studies he already acted at various theatres (Classical Theater of Harlem, Lincoln Center, Performance Space New York) and realised his own short films. These include "Fever Source", which was selected for the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, and the medium-length film "Cloud Zero". Lamin lives in Berlin, where he writes scripts for film and series projects and works as an actor. During the 2020/2021 season, he will be a guest performer at Theater Oberhausen.
Ygor Gama is aDirector & Media Artist based in Berlin. After award-winning short films like LEAVING in 2012, he co-directed #YA, a mix of film and urban intervention about civil disobedience actions around the world, which was nominated to the Crystal Bear in the Berlinale Film Festival, and honored by international film prizes, as well as in Deutsche Welle and Canal ARTE. He discovered XR technologies as IDFA DocLab alumni, mentored by Casper Sonnen. He is the video-artist for Maqamat Dance Theatre and Omar Rajeh in Beirut, a leading voice of contemporary dance in the Arab World. He is member of the Selection Committee for the Generation Program in the Berlinale Int. Film Festival.
Wing-Ho Kloud Wan was born in Hong Kong. He graduated from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong in 2008. With his strong background in knowledge of New Media Art and Film Production, he is now a filmmaker in the Art Department. Lately, he has worked in the positions as a Set Decorator and an Art Director. He also works with freelance artists for various fields, like props, set and video design for theatre, consultant for media productions. Moreover, he finds great pleasure in being a guest lecturer in an academic field.
Director Doris Yeung
Hong Kong/China/Indonesia/Netherlands 2017
101 Min.,
OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Doris Yeung and Sarnt Utamachote
With an opening performance by Isu Mignon Mignonne & Mandhla. Followed by a Skype talk with Sarnt Utamachote and Doris Yeung
Taxi Stories is a mosaic of stories from three different Asian cities in which the paths of the rich and poor cross in taxis. A closeted gay Beijing cab driver tries to seduce a rich passenger, a pregnant Hong Kong trophy wife starts to develop feelings for her new Indonesian maid, and a Jakartan slum orphan becomes infatuated with a Western female backpacker. All three characters desperately want to connect on a basic human level but ultimately find themselves a hindrance. In contemporary Asia, where social mobility is linked to increasing wealth, money divides and separates each of them making it harder to become who they really want to be.
Isu Mignon Mignonne (it/it/its) questions how itself* appears in the world, and twists it through various kinds of performance. It can be ritualistic, it can be multi-layered, it can be cathartic. It resurrects the invisible queer death through the green screen. It wears the female figure as an anaglyph 3D illusion. It reclaims the power of instrumentalizing one’s body and praises the sacred hole through the vibration of the snake.
Mandhla. is a trans-feminine gender non-conforming body born and raised in Zimbabwe, Africa. Currently residing between Berlin and Cologne, she brings a blend of experimental R&B and Soul music intertwined with visual projections and performative dancing. Her music speaks of the daily trials that Trans*, enby and femme* immigrant bodies experience daily with love, identity, sex, and acceptance.
Doris Yeung is an Asian American filmmaker from San Francisco. Her first feature film Motherland (2009) was named one of the ten best Asian American Films of 2009 by Asian Pacific Arts Magazine and the Hollywood Reporter called her a “filmmaker to watch”. Her second feature film Taxi Stories (2017) has been screened in over 30 festivals around the world. Since 2002, she has lived and worked in Amsterdam and is the founder of CinemAsia Film Festival, Netherlands.
Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์ อุตมโชติ) is a nonbinary filmmaker and curator. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, with whom they curated the un.thai.tled Film Festival Berlin and Beyond the kitchen: Stories from the Thai Park. Their video installation I Am Not Your Mother (2020) was exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and their short film Soy Sauce (2020) was screened at OutFest Fusion LA, Xposed Berlin, and Queer East London 2021, among others.
Followed by a talk with Ragil Huda and Tamarra (Indonesian with live English subtitles, transl. Ardi Kuhn)
Conflicted by her family’s expectations and religious beliefs, in The Book of Jasmine, a Black Caribbean woman is torn between religion and her love for another woman. On the other side of the globe, Pilgrimage to the Bissu Community immerses us in the lives and stories of spiritual and gender-diverse people with the aim of decolonizing rigid Western constructions of gender identity. Just across the Celebes Sea, Anito1 documents the Ati-atihan festival, a ceremony that incorporates animism, folk Catholicism and ancestral beliefs of the Aeta people.
The Book of Jasmine Melanie Grant, Barbados 2017, 14 min.
Pilgrimage to the Bissu Community Tamarra, Indonesia 2020, 30 min.
Tamarra (*Tasikmlaya, West Java, 1989) is a self-taught artist currently pursuing undergraduate studies at Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta, majoring in history. Tamarra’s work deals with gender and sexuality, the history of non-binaries, religion, and humanity.
Followed by a talk with Quarteera and Assel Aushakimova
Followed by a talk with a representative from Quarteera and Assel Aushakimova (Russian with live English subtitles, transl. Alexandr Lange)
Through the use of oral storytelling and animation, Adamantine is a story of forgotten desire and the search for a sense of belonging, one that centers around a magical turn of events and the passage of self-discovery. Welcome to the USA tells a similar story, but follows the path of a lesbian who is suddenly able to migrate to start a new life and the challenges they face along the way. It is one of just a few feature-length Kazakh films with a protagonist from the LGBTQ community. With both films ultimately expressing a form of wishful thinking and the kind of “magical” energy that lies behind all emancipatory projects, each sheds light on the often forgotten narratives of queer persons in/from post-soviet central Asia.
Adamantine Art Arutyunyan, USA 2017, 9 min.
Welcome to the USA Assel Aushakimova, Kazakhstan 2019, 94 min.
Quarteera has been connecting Russian-speaking LGBTQI* (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and intersexual) people in Germany since 2012. The organization counteracts the multiple disadvantages Russian-speaking LGBTIQ* people face as non-Germans and as LGBTQI*. Fields of work include political education, counseling services for LGBTQI* people and its parents, and international cooperation projects with LGBTQI* organizations especially in the countries of the former USSR.
Assel Aushakimova is a Kazakhstani director, screenwriter, and producer. Her first feature film Welcome to the USA had its world premiere at AFI Fest 2019 and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize as Best International Narrative Feature of NewFest New York’s LGBTQ Film Festival 2020. She is currently working on her second feature film that has been selected for the first workshop of the Biennale College Cinema 2020-2021 of Venice IFF.
Followed by a talk with Mark Lutta, Popo Fan and Achiro Patricia Olwoch
No Romo is a short film about questioning the ways in which we perform romantic love in society and the many shapes that love can take. Baby Girl tells the story of Jessica, a first-year university student who suffers an emotional breakdown following the discovery that she was born intersex. Yet when Jessica meets the free-spirited Sally, she realizes that she can be herself and still find true acceptance. Polyamorous Family documents a poly family containing black, white, Chinese, and Indian members, exploring relationships, globalization, and sexuality. In Plain Sight documents how an LGBTQ+ community functions in Uganda, as the filmmaker shares an insight into the dynamics of life in a country where being gay is considered unlawful and immoral.
No Romo Elliot Blue, Germany 2021, 15 min.
Baby Girl Selasie Djameh, Ghana 2019, 24 min.
Polyamorous Family He Xiaopei, China 2010, 26 min.
In Plain Sight Achiro P. Olwoch, Uganda 2019, 17 min.
Mark Lutta is from Jinja, Eastern Uganda. He recently graduated with a BA at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. He worked with Achiro Media House (AMH) and Lillian Kelle Productions, an organization focused on content that brings awareness to Child Sexual Abuse. He was an assistant coordinator at the Kampala International Theatre Festival. Mark currently lives in Cologne.
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
Achiro Patricia Olwoch hails from Gulu, in Northern Uganda. She is an award winning writer, director and producer. After winning numerous for her ‘Coffee shop TV’ series as creator and writer and ‘Yat Madit’ as head writer, and her short films: ‘The Surrogate’, ‘The Mineral Basket’, ‘Maraya Ni’. She is presently in post working on a feature documentary ‘My Prison Diary’ due for release in 2021 and she has two feature scripts ‘The General’s Amnesty’ and ‘The Surrogate’ in development. She has mentored a couple of emerging writers in the performing arts during annual residential workshops by the Kampala International Theatre Festival for the past two years. More about Achiro and her works can be found on her website.
While The Sea Runs Thru My Veins is an assemblage of multiple post-migrant voices from different geopolitical spheres, At Home But Not at Home evokes postcolonial memories through the use of contrasting footage. Together with cartographic appropriation and re-mapping in Sewing Borders and the aesthetics of opacity, rumours and secrets in Endnote, each of these short films reflect queer, if not asexual, counter-narrative aesthetics and decolonial knowledge. Here we can explore (un)seen subjects and how they cross over to occupy new bodily spaces.
Endnote Ashish Avikunthak, India 2005, 18 min.
The Sea Runs Thru My Veins Zara Zandieh, Germany 2019, 20 min.
Sewing Borders Mohamad Hafeda, Lebanon 2018, 25 min.
At Home But Not at Home Suneil Sanzgiri, USA 2019,11 min.
Zara Zandieh (they/she) is a filmmaker born and based in Berlin. Zara’s works have been nominated for awards at various film festivals including the BFI FLARE Film Festival, Queer Lisboa, and Dok Leipzig. Zara’s most current project, Octavia’s Visions premiered at Oberhausen Film Festival 2021. Zara was selected for the 2021 edition of Berlinale Talents.
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
The comedy-drama Wa, Nan shows a beauty pageant, My Name is Untac takes a look at African-Cambodian identity, Emak Menolak puts a supportive mother at the center, Void tackles the queer politics of IDs, and ONTEM unfolds a contemplative picture about the losses and pain some have to undergo in order to be truly themselves. Each of these short films showcases grass-root productions centering trans* voices and experiences as well as ongoing campaigns for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
*In this context, trans is an inclusive “decolonial” umbrella term referring to all gender diverse people who depart from normative Western ideas of gender. Trans = a non-cis-gender person.
Wa, Nan Marie Bernadette Tayag / Eliza Santos / Danette Orlido, Philippines 2018, 20 min.
My Name is Untac Vana Hem, Cambodia 2012, 13 min.
Emak Menolak Anggun Pradesha, Indonesia 2020, 9 min.
Void Asya Leman, Turkey 2017, 13 min.
ONTEM (Before Today) Thiago Kistenmacker and Sanni Est, Brazil 2017, 13 min.
Elliot Blueis a filmmaker and light designer. Their short films Black is Me (2017), Home? (2018), and No Romo (2021) have been shown at film festivals around the world. Since 2016, Elliot also gives film workshops to enable empowerment and self-determination.
Zoya is a translator, curator, and educator based in Berlin. They are an organizer and programmer of TransFormations – Trans* Film Festival Berlin, a biennial grassroots, community-focused festival organized by an exclusively Black and PoC trans*, two-spirit, gender-non-conforming team.
Followed by a talk with Popo Fan and Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo
Pink Pill is a hard-hitting examination of gender/sexuality-based bullying and its emotional consequences. Goodbye Mr. B Hello Ms. B is an autobiographical documentary about director Beatrice Wong’s experiences as a transgender woman. Period@Period expresses the experience of having a period, one which might not only be assigned to female cis-gender people but to anyone. What I Would’ve Told My Daughter if I knew what to Say Back Then features over 13 years of home video footage concluding with an unraveling of the filmmaker's identity. Protest and Desire is a video artwork that challenges popular discourse around sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV by focusing on how women of color deal with intimacy, sex, and age within the landscape of white Europe.
Pink Pill Xie Xiaoshan, China 2017, 30 min.
Goodbye Mr. B Hello Ms. B Beatrix Wong, Hong Kong 2017, 15 min.
Period@Period Hnin Ei Hlaing, Myanmar 2018, 8 min.
What I Would’ve Told My Daughter if I knew what to Say Back Then Cha Roque, Philippines 2017, 13 min.
Protest and Desire Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo, Germany 2019, 20 min.
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo studied under TJ Demos at The Maryland Institute College of Art and later The Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow Poland. D'Angelo's work confronts fear and vulnerability through video, neon, installation, and sculpture. Her works have been exhibited at The Screen City Biennial, Halle 14, Hua International, VOLTANY, Taiwan Digital Arts Center, Galeria Studio Warsaw, and The Goethe Institute.
Followed by a talk with Ahmad Awadalla, Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan and Ragil Huda
Followed by a talk with Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan, Ragil Huda, and Ahmed Awadalla and a closing party.
Slow-motion shots that reveal parts of bodies and fragmented films ask the audience to re-construct these slices as fully embodied human beings. Taking a US-American Black-queer perspective in Non, je ne regrette rien (No Regret) and a Canadian-Caribbean Asian-queer viewpoint in Sea in the Blood, both films interweave a centuries-old shared sense of sociality and bodily memories with the poetics of kinship – notions which have long inspired queer BIPOC social movements.
Non, je ne regrette rien (No Regret) Marlon T. Riggs, USA 1992, 38 min.
Sea in the Blood Richard Fung, Canada 2000, 26 min.
Ahmad Awadalla is a writer, psychosocial worker, and sex educator based in Berlin.
Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์ อุตมโชติ) is a nonbinary filmmaker and curator. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, with whom they curated the un.thai.tled Film Festival Berlin and Beyond the kitchen: Stories from the Thai Park. Their video installation I Am Not Your Mother (2020) was exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and their short film Soy Sauce (2020) was screened at OutFest Fusion LA, Xposed Berlin, and Queer East London 2021, among others.
Popo Fan, born 1985, is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China. In 2019 he curated film series “More Than A Midnight Rainbow” about Chinese-made and Chinese-speaking queer films at bi’bak.
Ragil Huda is an organizer, independent curator, and graduate student at the Asien-Afrika Institut, Universität Hamburg. He co-founded QTIBIPOC Hamburg and is also one of the organizing committees of the international platform and network called Queer' Asia in Berlin. His community engagement and academic work specifically center on queerness, intersectionality, community building, critical pedagogy, and the social-political realities of marginalized communities through various methodologies and collaborative curatorial practices.
